For a good hour together Mr Jarker would rest in a broken-bottomed chair, smoking a short black pipe, his hands supporting his heavy chin, and his elbows making pits in his knees, as, like some hideous old cathedral gargoyle, he sat gazing fixedly at the little wondering face of the child. From time to time he reversed his position to re-refresh himself with a draught of his favourite beverage--gin and beer, a beverage which always produced a loud smack from his thick negro lips. If there was no fascination in the child's face for Bill Jarker, there was most certainly fascination in the ruffian's face for the child; and unconsciously imitating his attitude, it would rest its dimply plump cheeks upon its tiny fists, and gaze again wonderingly, without a thought of moving, till the lids slowly sank over the violet eyes, and the little golden-haired, soft, lovable head sank sideways, with all those prettiest of pretty motions seen in one of the most beautiful sights in nature--a child dropping off into its simple trusting sleep of innocence; but soon it would start into wakefulness again, with a frightened air, and its little face drawn and ready to cry; but a glance at the hideous face before it subdued the disposition, and once more the same long, weary gaze commenced. This took place day after day, and a stranger seeing it might have fancied that in this case innocence was exercising its power over guilt; but one who knew Mr Jarker well would have arrived at the right idea, namely, that this gentleman was making his plans. A pipe or two of tobacco, a pint of beer strengthened with gin, and a long stare at the face of his wife when living, a cat, a dog, or of late the child, had been the preliminaries of more than one desperate burglary in a country place somewhere within a circle of fifty miles' radius, taking Saint Paul's as the centre. Bill's _confreres_ in the bird-catching profession contented themselves with trips countryward to the extent of eight or ten miles; but, though on the whole Bill and his two or three companions caught fewer birds, he never let distance interfere with his pursuits, and used to boast that the birds he netted were of a rarer kind. Bill would travel third-class almost any distance to find good pitches for his nets; and even then, perhaps, after a three or four days' trip, and returning with hardly a bird, he seemed to be so infatuated with the place and its prospects, that he would gather together his two or three intimates, and go down again, travelling slowly by road, setting off too in such a hurry, in a miserable cart drawn by a wretched-looking hack, that friends and self would entirely forget nets and call-birds, when they would console themselves with the remark that they might take a few nightingales.